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It was exactly ten seconds before the Detective would throw herself from her peaceful routine of life straight into the web of tragedy regarding the plethora of unison missing cases, featuring thirty-six cast members originally competing on the third season of the reality television race show: The Ridonculous Race. Everyone in Canada, or most people for accuracy, has heard about the two year long mystery of the cast who had disappeared before the first episode could be aired, and had only been rescued and returned two weeks prior to this interview.
After checking her watch thirty times in twelve seconds, the Detective finally musters up courage and simmers her cold, sweaty nerves down enough to bring herself to open the door. Inside the room, light was scarce upon request of this survivor, a request which would turn out to be common among most, and music would be commonly declined. She twiddles a pen between her index and middle finger, tapping it against her thigh and sits down.
The Detective looks to her interviewee; a scared fox that chose to avoid their predator by tucking their chin into their neck. She curves the corners of her lips a soft welcome, and she places the tape recorder down on the table.
“I really appreciate you coming to speak to me today, I understand how difficult this must be for you.” The return glance was an undecided mix of frozen fire welded into complete numbness which lasted a moment too long to not interrupt. “My name is Detective Fayne. Ok? I just need to ask you some questions about the events that took place the day of the crash and beyond. If you need to take a break at any time, that's perfectly understandable, and just ask and we can take a break. I'll also be recording this session just so we have everything said in a file which can be used later on to ensure we can support you in every way you may need. Ok?”
“..Ok.” Said a quiet hoarse whisper.
“Ok.” The detective observes them intently, watching as their eyebrows and mouth twitch in emotion which she declared as undecided, and the nervous fingers pick at their cuticles. The occasional sniffle and the quiet sound of fingernails scratching against each other. She felt an incredible guilt making them relive the trauma, but it had to be done. It was a complete shock when it was announced that there were any survivors left to get rescued in the first place, and a miracle to know that they had survived two years so far from society. Anything could have happened in that wilderness.
“Can you please describe to me in exact detail.. What really happened when you went missing?”
Toronto, May 2015
Thirty-six contestants file onto a plane, sheltering them from the intense July heat. An issue occurred with the airline they were planning to take, so they were forced to take the private plane meant for the host and crew. Not that any of them were complaining…
A girl with black pigtails tied up by red ribbons gasps as she skips into the plane. “I call the window seat!”
“Be my guest,” replies a girl with sleek black hair and similar facial features. “I‘ll stare into the aisle and think about winning.”
“Can you believe this?” A young woman with slicked back brown hair storms in with arms crossed. “Our rightful headstart is being taken away, and now we have to fly with all the… losers!”
Two elderly men strut onto the plane, filling the space with a certain dry chortle. “Look at us!” Said one with thin white hair, dressed in blue tennis clothes. He high-fives his teammate. “First day on this show and we're already flying private. Heck, if we went home first I'd still walk away happy.”
The elderly teammate, dressed in an orange version of the blue tennis outfit, sticks his neck out in the direction of the employee bar-cart and wiggles his fingers with enticement. His bony hands are quickly slapped away by Don (the host of the show), who had begrudgingly began making his way to the back of the plane.
“Don't get too excited. These are for employees only. You can take a biscoff cookie when you start working for me.”
“Pfft! I wasn't even looking at the cookies. My eyes were on the real goods. The alcohol, if I might. Heh.”
Don continues walking through the rows of seats but finds his path blocked by two teenage boys, who were in a physical fight with each other in the middle of the plane.
“I called shotgun in the skyscraper! I get to have the window seat, you.. snot-bag!” The fight continues with the ginger freckled boy rubbing his fist into his teammates head and ruffling his hair vigorously.
“We're in a different plane, stink head! ‘Shotgun’ doesn't count anymore if you've switched planes!” They continue exchanging contradictory ‘yes it does/no it doesn't’ until Don clears his throat.
“Can't you two take a break from fighting for five minutes?”
“UH. No, we so can't!/UH. Yes, we so can!” Don grumbles and shoves them both onto different sides of the plane and continues walking. He can still hear the mildly faint yet still ear-grating sound of ‘we so could/no, we so couldn't!’ repeating over and over, starting another fight between each other. At this point Don couldn't care any less to break them apart for a second time, and he had already passed more teams on the plane, so it was a rule of distance; he couldn't stop their bickering even if he wanted to.
He drops down into his seat at the very back of the plane and is immediately brought a glass of champagne which he graciously accepts and tips the glass towards his mouth, drinking the entire volume in one gulp.
A middle-aged man walks by the pair of bickering boys, accompanied by a just barely teen-aged boy wearing a backwards baseball cap.
“I bet you‘re glad you‘re an only child now, eh, son?” asks the former.
“Sure, dad.” The younger shrugs. “Can I have the window seat?” The older man swiftly swoops into the row before he could sit down, making his claim to his throne official by clicking in his seat belt and adjusting it accordingly.
“No can do, Junior. The closer you are to the window, the closer you are to glass, and we wouldn't want you getting glass on you should we have an emergency! No, no, so you'll just have to stay in the aisle like a good kid. But hey, the closer you are to the aisle the closer you are to the snack cart, eh? Pass me some peanut bags, would you?”
Also in the back of the plane was another duo who were singing the instruments of ‘Breakout’ by the Foo Fighters where the lyrics are just a bunch of ‘dadadada-bubububu’ in the notes of the melody. It's terrifically painful to be in proximity both to the ears and to the nose, and the girl in front of them makes her strike of pain abundantly clear. She tucks dark caramel hair behind her ears and props her head above her seat to get a good look at them and give the right glare accordingly.
“My ears are bleeding!! Mom!” An older woman pops up above her seat–a big blonde blowout, and a face to which the discomfort from the music was hidden beneath a layer of botox. She slips a hundred dollar bill through the gap next to the window which is snatched away by a boy with long brown curly hair.
“Sweet!” Said his teammate.
“Wait.. Are we getting paid to.. ROCK OUT? Awesome, man!”
“No, Spud... We're being paid to not rock out..” This truth takes a while for his teammate to digest, and his smile slowly, really slowly begins to fade.
“..Aw. Bummer.”
In the middle of the plane, two frail teenage boys take out their medication box. A big metal box (covered in silicone since one is allergic to aluminium) with all of their prescriptions labeled accordingly: creams, syrups, and tablets. And inhalers. And epipens. And lotions. And a sinus cleaning machine.
“It's that time of day again, Mickey..” He takes out his medication tablets, which he has learnt to swallow six in one go through years of experience.
“It sure is.. We got lucky though..! Sure, we can't get the right plane, but we get to experience a real private jet instead! It's not much, but it sure as heck is one step towards proving everyone wrong. Our classmates will be so jealous when they see us on TV.” They miss twice before successfully elbow-bumping each other.
Two gothic competitors retouched their makeup, also sat in the back.
“How do I look?” Says the male goth monotonously.
“Like a corpse.” Says his equally goth teammate plainly.
“Good.” He continues caking on white foundation.
The plane finally takes off, and the seat belt symbol stops flashing red.
Returning to the near front of the plane, the girl with black pigtails tied with red ribbons extends her hand out to the team sitting in the row behind her.
“Hey, you look, like, super familiar. Have I seen you somewhere before?” She cocks her head to the side, and is disappointed by the lack of realisation that came from the boy she refers to. He instead smiles humbly and shakes her hand.
“You might know me from some of the stuff I'm in on teevee. Y’know, Total Drama Island, Total Drama Aftermath, Surf's Up.. I don't think I've ever seen you around, bro. Sorry to disappoint. The name's Geoff.” Geoff tosses a potato chip into his mouth and chews loudly.
The girl's face lights up. “That's where I know you from! Ohoho, Emma, he's super famous. He got totally wiped out by this massive wave when he was on Surfs Up Canada and broke his leg, it was wild. How are you holding up, dude?”
Geoff talks through his chewing. He seems proud of his injury. “Nahh, a few weeks of recovery and I was back on the board.”
“He was on my favourite trickshot fail video that I showed you! I'm Kitty, by the way.” Kitty squints her eyes and raises an eyebrow at Geoff’s teammate before gasping. “And you! You won Beach Boss Miami last year! You're Brody, also known as the Wave Breaker! Oh, my gosh, Emma!” She shakes ‘Emma’ by the shoulders, making her also prop up on her seat to face the two boys.
“Kitty used to be completely obsessed with that Beach Boss show and her reaction when it was rebooted was nothing short of absolutely insane.” She turns her head to face Kitty. “And she made our parents buy 10 of the crunchy crackles cereals so she can rummage through it and find the tiny metal surfer guy on his surf board.”
“It took a lot of hard work, but with dedication on one side and Cars 2 playing on the other, we scavenged the surfer trophy with glory!” Kitty shakes her fist triumphantly.
“Don't take it as her being some complete superfan though. She just gets excited about this stuff.” Said Emma.
A few rows behind the conversing group, two young men sit. One is sitting in the aisle seat, breathing heavily, eyes squeezing tight, clutching a small brown teddy bear, while the other sits close to the window, nonchalant expression on his face.
“Relax Owen… if our new host has more integrity than Chris, he most likely won’t crash this plane on purpose.” the more serious one says, his eyes flicking from the window to his gasping teammate. From the seat in front of them, a girl twists around to face the two, almost sitting on her seat backwards.
“I see your teammate has aerophobia, which is also referred to as aviophobia! He’s being quite loud right now. I recommend getting prescribed sleeping pills, since I predict there will be a lot of flying in the race.” she says with a smile.
“Nice to meet you too, stranger…”
The girl grins wider, “I’m Ellody! And you are…?” she wedges her arm through the gap in between her and her partner’s seat, holding it out for a handshake.
“Noah.” he says, not shaking the hand. Instead he waits for her to turn around, arms crossed. Ellody doesn’t turn, she continues to talk,
“What’s your partner’s name?”
“Owen.”
“I’m with Mary. But she’s not very talkative, so I normally do the talking, and-”
“Ellody,” a slightly nasally voice that must be the previously described ‘Mary’ speaks up, “Leave him alone. He sounds particularly uninterested.”
“Oh.” Ellody looks at Mary, before nodding once.
“Goodbye then Noah. Best of luck in the race.”
She twists herself back down into a normal sitting position, already talking to Mary again.
There's a muffled ‘ding!’ sound coming from the speakers: a pilot announcement. The cacophony of separate conversations continued throughout this announcement, so it was only heard by a few.
“Good afternoon, contestants, interns, and hosts! This is your captain speaking. Our flight plan has us going over a lap in the west of Canada in hopes of avoiding a storm system coming in. You'll get an extra hour–half hour flight time, but you should get a great view of the Canadian Rockies. Enjoy this extra time resting or strategising, and, once again.. Welcome aboard to Flight 8015.” The announcement ends with a sharp click.
Two contestants–both extremely muscular, loudly make out before saving their fellow competitors from further discomfort by pulling away. The woman holds his face in her hands. She sits in his lap, causing a flight attendant to walk over with a stern expression.
“Ma’am, please return to your own seat.”
She shoots her a glare and gives her boyfriend one last kiss before begrudgingly returning to her seat. “Sorry sugarbumps, some people just don’t understand what it’s like to really love! Let’s wait until the attendant is gone. You know what they say: Out of sight, out of mind.”
“I dunno, babe. The rules on a plane are rules for a reason..!” He says. This receives a blank stare from his girlfriend, expecting this to be a joke. He catches on, and, with hesitation, laughs. “...Kidding! C’mere.” They go right back to making out, much to the discomfort of another team behind them. One of them twirls a blonde wave around her finger uncomfortably, and the other twists his string necklace between his fingers.
“How long is this flight Devin?” The girl squeaks out, and covers her ears with her palms to avoid the sloppy kissing noises in front of them.
‘Devin’ shudders and shakes his head.
“Not short enough, that’s for sure. Eugh.. Seriously, when do they stop!” He whispers and tilts his head up with dread.
A woman with tied back brown hair and a police cap, sitting next to them on the other side of the aisle, turns her head.
“Eugh! So gross, right?” she exclaims loudly.
“Quiet down!” replies the woman next to her. “Not that I disagree, but can you really be talking about gross, MacArthur?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing..! It's just that.. Sometimes I feel as though you value other things such as, uh, pride, over personal hygiene and social awareness.”
Macarthur raises an eyebrow and turns her head. “I’m incredibly aware, Sanders. Aware of all of the potential criminals all around us. I can smell them out–I can sense them.. And I think I can sense someone on this very plane.”
Her teammate slaps her own face, but Macarthur was incredibly serious. She leans over her teammate to get a good view into the aisle and turns her head side to side sniffing vigorously to sense one out. She eventually catches a glimpse of her proclaimed potential criminal. He was tall with good posture, so his head stuck out above the back of his seat right in Macarthur’s line of sight. His golden hair which was perfectly styled and slicked back into a 1970s pompadour seemed exactly the hairstyle a bad samaritan who did no good deeds would wear. Her eyes squint a glare before returning to her side of the seats.
“There.” Says Macarthur with a low growl, pointing her finger to the direction of the man. “I smell it all over that pink bad wolf. Crime.”
“Right.” Sanders nods her head dismissively. “Okay!”
The accused criminal turns his head towards Sanders and Macarthur. His eyebrows twitch with concern, but his lips smile widely. He must be wondering why they’re talking about him. He and Macarthur stare at each other and blink for a few seconds, then he looks away and ducks his head slightly. He appears to be whispering something to his teammate. His teammate looks in Macarthur’s direction through the gap in between the seats, then whispers indistinctively.
“See, Sanders? Can’t be trusted. Who knows what crimes they could be plotting now. Armed robbery… Breaking and entering.. Loitering.” Macarthur holds a determined smolder. “We need to keep our eyes pierced open for anything fishy.. Got it?”
“Macarthur I think they might be whispering because they’re offended you just hit them with a baseless accusation of crime. They haven’t actually done anything.”
“They’re offended.. Because they know I've figured them out.” Macarthur’s smolder returns.
Sanders sighs with disappointment. “Sure.”
There was a tall stack of magazines near the back of the plane, and bordered by the wall of hot gossip and the latest fashion trends was a girl with black slicked back hair accessorised with sunglasses on her head, a light blue top and a beautiful pink necklace. Next to her was a boy with perfectly coiffed light brown hair, glasses, and a blue henley top. Buried in her reading, the girl gasps after flipping the page.
“Oh, I'd look so good in that!” She tilts the page towards her teammate, then raises an eyebrow at his choice to respond with loud snores instead of agreeing with her enthusiastically. Jen decides to ease the noise by opening the air mask compartment above him and pulling the straps over his head and mouth. The noise is now pleasantly muffled. She slouches back down in her seat and raises her knee up on the edge to prop the magazine while she reads, making small comments of approval or disapproval here and there.
Tom is awoken by a jolt in the plane— one he hardly feels through his lack of consciousness. His eyes slowly flutter open. In his groggy stupor, he can only manage to detect the feeling of the plane shaking around him. As his other senses come back to him, and his eyes fully open, he doesn’t even get the chance to look around before the sound of alarms blaring and piercing screams fill his ears. The plane is dim. All the window curtains are shut. He whips his head around, only then noticing that there’s an air mask on his face already, just to see someone fall into the aisle. The plane’s turbulence accelerates, and he turns to see Jen asleep next to him.
“Jen?!” he gasps, the plane’s shaking nearly taking the wind out of him. He grips his hands on Jen's shoulders and shakes her.
“Jen! Get up!”
He leans over her to open the shutter, just in time to see the plane level with the top of the trees, descending rapidly.
He screams, trying to shove the other air mask onto Jen’s face, before the plane gives one final shake and goes dark.